


guide you home

by Origamidragons



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ensemble Cast, Epistolary, F/F, Hungry Days AU, Nakamaship, a bit of, with some considerable liberties taken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-12
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-19 15:20:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22679854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons
Summary: Nami bumps her shoulder playfully.“There,” she says with a wink. “Now we won’t ever forget to text each other. I’m gonna annoy you so much, princess, you’re gonna regret ever giving me your number.”“I doubt that,” Vivi says. She really, really does. “You better keep me up to date with everything everyone gets up to, okay?”(A love story told in texts, phone calls and birthday presents, in the year after Vivi goes home from her study abroad.)
Relationships: Nami/Nefertari Vivi
Comments: 13
Kudos: 98
Collections: One Piece Valentine's Day Exchange 2020





	guide you home

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY SO i wrote this for the [OPValentines](https://opvalentines.tumblr.com/) event on Tumblr and it got... slightly out of hand, length-wise, because my giftee's wishlist included both Namivivi and Cup Noodle AU and seeing that immediately sent me into feral stupid mode and I wrote this in like less than a week. 
> 
> So! Happy Valentines, MajoraOP, hope you enjoy!

It’s hard, leaving.

It’s even harder, leaving _her_.

Vivi tells her as much, one lazy afternoon a week before she leaves, the kind she’s begun to treasure like gold as the date edges closer and closer to departure. The kind where there’s nothing to do and nowhere to go and she can just lie on the fuzzy blue carpet in Nami’s cluttered room and talk, as Nami traces lazy circles on her back with an idle finger and listens.

“I don’t want to go home,” she says, hands laced under her chin, and then frowns into the carpet before Nami can say anything. “I mean- that sounds bad. Of course I want to go home. I miss my father, and Kohza, and Pell and Chaka and Igaram, and everyone. I just… don’t want to _leave_. You know?”

Nami hums. “Yeah. It sucks,” she says bluntly.

Vivi can’t help but giggle at the directness, and it comes out a little wet. Nami must notice, because a moment later she shifts to press herself against Vivi’s side, resting her head on her shoulder, a warm and comforting weight that Vivi can’t help but lean into. “Hey,” she says, “it’s not like we’re gonna lose touch or anything- actually, hang on.”

Vivi glances up as Nami pries her phone free of the back pocket of her jeans. Her phone case is gold, patterned with blue waves, a present from Vivi two months ago. _It just made me think of you_ , she’d said, rubbing the back of her neck with one hand, and Nami had _beamed_.

Nami flips her camera open with a thumb, holds the phone out at arm’s length. “Smile!”

It catches Vivi off-guard enough that she barely has time to react, and her smile is a little startled and awkward in the resulting picture, but Nami declares it perfect anyways. Vivi snorts and swats her arm, grabs jokingly for the phone to delete it, but Nami pins her down with one hand, holds it out of her reach and sets the picture as her lockscreen while Vivi watches, laughing the whole time.

“There, see?” Nami says, and holds her phone out, lockscreen open. “Perfect.”

In the picture, Vivi’s not really looking at the camera at all. Her eyes are fixed on Nami’s brilliant smile, all pale skin and freckles, a distracted smile on her own lips. Nami’s eyes are bright and laughing, tip of her tongue poking out between her teeth.

Nami’s right. It’s perfect.

“Actually,” Vivi says. “Can you send that to me?”

“Of course,” Nami says, already tapping at her phone again to do so.

Vivi sets it as her lockscreen, too. Nami bumps her shoulder playfully.

“There,” she says with a wink. “Now we won’t ever forget to text each other. I’m gonna annoy you so much, princess, you’re gonna regret ever giving me your number.”

“I doubt that,” Vivi says. She really, really does. “You better keep me up to date with everything everyone gets up to, okay?”

“ _Obviously_ ,” Nami says, like there was never any doubt. “It’ll be chaos, just so you know. With you gone the group levels of sanity and competency will go down by half.”

“I do feel bad about leaving Robin on her own,” Vivi agrees, and manages to keep a straight face right up until she catches sight of Nami’s comically betrayed expression out of the corner of her eye, and then she’s crumpling into helpless laughter.

Nami pokes her in the side, right in the soft spot under her ribcage, and Vivi shrieks and curls up away from her, tucking her hands around her waist to protect herself. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry, you’re a- a beacon of wisdom and maturity-” she manages before she dissolves into laughter again.

Nami huffs, but when Vivi manages to pull herself back up into a sitting position she can see she’s biting her lips to keep from laughing too. “I take it back,” Nami announces, pointing at her. “I take back every nice thing I’ve ever said about you, you’re the worst, you’re just better at hiding it than me.”

“I am not worse than you,” Vivi objects. “You steal lunch money from freshmen.”

Nami grins, wide and shameless. “Yeah,” she says, “but you love me anyways,” and for some reason it steals the breath right out of Vivi’s lungs and for a moment she’s _so_ close to saying, _yeah, I do_ , there in that cluttered sunlit room that smells like Nami’s tangerine shampoo.

Instead, she says, “And you need to stop trying to resell Zoro’s kendo equipment on Amazon.”

“I only do that when he leaves his things at my house!” Nami protests, and Vivi laughs, and the brief frozen moment dissolves back into the same comfortable afternoon bliss. “And nobody ever _buys_ it, anyways-”

“That’s because you _overcharge-_ ”

* * *

Nami comes to the train station to see her off. A train to the airport, a shuttle to the international terminal, a plane from there- she’s lived in the little city of Meri for nearly a year now, battled more than one bout of homesickness, but never before has home seemed quite so far away.

Nami vaults the ticketing machine to accompany her to the boarding platform, and once they’re there she hugs her, tight and desperate, and Vivi holds her back just as hard and wants to never let go. Nami’s skin is sunkissed and her arms are strong and Vivi is going to miss her _so much_.

The train rumbles up beside them, and the wind from its passing ruffles both of their hair. The doors slide open with a soft noise, and all around them people behind to shuffle onboard, dragging luggage with them. She holds on even tighter in answer, like if she clings to Nami tight enough she can stop time in this moment and never have to leave.

Eventually Nami’s grip loosens, and she leans back just far enough for Vivi to see her smile, more wobbly than usual. “I’m gonna miss you, you know that, princess?”

“Me too,” Vivi says, managing to get the words out around the lump in her throat. “I’m… I’ll miss you too. I’ll miss everyone, but… you especially.”

 _I love you_ , she doesn’t say.

“Thanks for coming to say goodbye,” she says instead. “I’m… glad you came.”

Nami gives her that lopsided grin. “Aw, you’re making me feel all special,” she says, half-teasing, and Vivi is grateful for the levity because it feels like all that’s keeping her from breaking down into a teary-eyed mess.

“You are special,” Vivi can’t stop herself from saying, her voice going soft with honesty.

Nami stares at her, caught wordless with her mouth half-open, and there’s something in her eyes that nearly stops Vivi’s heart.

The loudspeaker blares out a last chance warning for passengers, and if she doesn't leave now she never will, so she presses a hurried, last-minute kiss to Nami’s cheek before she grabs her suitcase and sprints for the closing doors, and she can’t look back because if she does she’ll never want to leave.

She makes it just in time.

The doors close behind her, and she slumps into the nearest seat as the train lurches into motion, her heart pounding double-time in her chest. She twists around to look out the window.

Nami is running along the platform and grinning wider than the sun, tears running down her cheeks, and she’s waving her phone in the air and shouting something that Vivi doesn’t even need to hear to understand.

_“You better text me, princess!”_

Vivi waves until her wrist hurts, and mouths a promise back, and watches until she can’t see her anymore.

A minute and a half later, a video rolls into her inbox, and Vivi finally cracks, and sobs into her hands and holds her phone close to her chest.

She’ll miss them so much.

* * *

**Vivi**  
landed safely!!

 **Nami**  
good!  
usopp will be relieved lmao

 **Vivi**  
usopp? why??

 **Nami**  
he looked up plane crash statistics  
you know how he gets

 **Vivi**  
oh dear  
yes, please tell him i’m just fine!

 **Nami**  
god you’re so cute

 **Vivi**  
???

 **Nami**  
‘oh dear’  
all our friends would default straight to ‘oh fuck’

 **Vivi**  
oh NO you just reminded me  
i’m going to have to start watching my language again

 **Nami**  
whaaaat why  
that’s bs ik you’re like a fancy heiress or smth but you’re a teenager too  
live a little

 **Vivi**  
yes but a lot of father’s stockholders have known me since i was a baby  
and they’re very old now  
if they hear me say the word ‘fuck’ the shock might do them in on the spot  
and before you say anything  
“then perish” is not an acceptable response to this situation

 **Nami**  
well then i got nothing

* * *

Two flights totalling twelve hours plus a two-hour layover in between is plenty of time for Vivi to wrestle her emotions back under control, stop her crying and dry her eyes.

And then she steps out of the baggage claim and sees her father standing there wearing a massive smile on his weathered face, Pell and Chaka at his side propping up an embarrassingly glittery ‘welcome home’ sign that’s nearly as large as she is, and she’s sobbing all over again. She throws herself into his open arms like she’s eight years old again and hears him wheeze as the impact drives the air out of his lungs.

“Vivi,” he says, and then again, “ _Vivi_ ,” and then, “Welcome home.”

She mumbles something that’s intended to go along the lines of ‘happy to be back,’ but her tears reduce it to an incoherent bubbly noise. The desert heat is washing across her skin, sweat already beading on her brow, and it feels like sinking into a long-awaited hot bath. She hadn’t realized how accustomed she’d grown to more temperate weather.

Despite everything, it’s good to be home.

It’s only when Pell politely clears his throat and carefully suggests they move the reunion to the car that she realizes they’re absolutely making a scene in the middle of the airport pickup area, and have been for a good five minutes or so.

She doesn’t care what the passersby think of her, particularly- among the many, many things her new friends taught her, one of the foremost is, in Zoro’s ever-concise words, _Do what makes you happy and fuck everybody else_. But she _does_ know her father shouldn’t really be standing for this long without his cane, so they separate just enough for her to wedge herself against his side and clumsily move them both in through the door of the limousine.

She manages to steady her breathing and dry her eyes on her shirtsleeves as Chaka pulls the car away, and by the time they’re on the freeway and the familiar desert scenery of the country she’s always loved so much is flying past outside the tinted windows, she’s more or less calmed down.

Her flight had landed in the evening, and it's almost night now, the last light of sunset washing over the dunes and turning them to gold. She missed this, more than she'd realized.

“Oh,” she finally thinks to ask, “where’s Kohza? I thought he’d be here.”

“He wanted to be,” her father says apologetically. “He had a scheduling conflict.”

“He’s one of the main organizers for a women’s rights protest in the city center today,” Pell clarifies, glancing back from the front seat. “And he figured you’d punch him if he missed that to be here.”

“Smart man,” Vivi says, and doesn’t manage to keep her proud smile off her face.

Her father chuckles. “Indeed. Don’t worry, though, he said he’d visit in the morning, and he’ll be at your welcome-home party tomorrow evening. He said he wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

She knows he wouldn’t.

“So Vivi,” Chaka says, and even with his eyes on the road she can hear the smile in his voice, “your father might not seem it, but he’s been desperate to know more about everything you got up to abroad. I think he’s read all your emails a dozen times apiece at least. Tell us _everything_.”

And that’s a tall order, to be sure, but she knows exactly where to start, and she can’t help but smile.

“Well,” she says, “two weeks into my stay, I went to the aquarium, and I met a group of people looking at this giant whale-”

* * *

**Vivi**  
told my father the laboon story  
i don’t know if he believed me

 **Nami**  
oh my god  
the whole thing??

 **Vivi**  
well  
i may have left out some parts i thought might stress him out

 **Nami**  
like you falling in the tank and almost getting eaten, you mean

 **Vivi**  
mayyybe

 **Nami**  
if i ever meet your dad and he only knows me as the girl who helped coerce you into stealing a whale it’ll be your fault  
he might not agree to give me your hand in marriage, vivi! what will i do then!

 **Vivi**  
first of all, it wasn’t stealing, it was liberating  
second of all don’t worry about that  
i’ll just be sure to tell lots of stories that make you sound as wonderful as you are  
and if that doesn’t work we can always elope

 **Nami**  
now you’re speaking my language

 **Vivi**  
you’d have to princess carry me out of the mansion though  
possibly with security guards in hot pursuit

 **Nami**  
i know you’re joking but that’s literally like my ideal wedding scenario  
let’s do it

* * *

The first thing Kohza says to her in almost a year, after squeezing all the air out of her in a hug and then noogeying her hair into a fluffy blue mess (she lets him- there’s so few people she can just have _fun_ with, and the reminder makes her miss her new friends keenly) is, “Did you really steal a whale?”

“It wasn’t _stealing_ , it was _liberating_ ,” Vivi says automatically, trying in vain to smooth her hair back down one-handed. “The tank they were keeping it in was _far_ too small- really you shouldn’t have _any_ whale in a tank- and the aquarium was right by the ocean already so-”

“I’m _so_ proud,” he says, ruffling her hair again, and he definitely means it- between them, he’s always been the civilly disobedient one.

“I knew you would be,” Vivi says with a laugh, and takes his hand and squeezes it. “I missed you,” she adds, entirely plain and honest.

“Missed you too, Vi,” he says back, and the scar above his eye crinkles as he grins. “Good to have you home.”

He slings an arm around her shoulders as they start off down the hall, walking a little aimlessly around the arching hallways and luxurious rooms of her family estate. Terracotta must have redecorated at least once since she’s been gone- Vivi keeps nearly tripping over unexpectedly-placed potted succulents.

“So what else did you get up to while you've been gone?” he asks.

Vivi thinks, and it doesn't take her long to hit on another good story- living in Meri for a year has given her an absolute abundance of them. “Well,” she starts, “one weekend my friends found out I'd never been camping- or, ‘proper camping,’ they said, apparently the kind I've done with father doesn't count- and they- well, mainly Luffy- decided I _had_ to go.”

She can't help but smile. “It turns out they qualify ‘proper camping’ as just taking a sleeping bag and a backpack and just _walking_ into the forest- Luffy didn't bother to bring a bag at all, actually, but I think he basically grew up in those woods, so maybe that's not surprising. But it was a _mess_ \- we got completely lost, and by the time it got dark Robin had us all scared half out of our wits from ghost stories, and Zoro wandered off at one point and we couldn't find him more than for an _hour_ -”

She trails off, and shakes her head, still smiling big and fond. “...It was really fun,” she says. “Just… the sort of thing I'd never get a chance to do here, you know, with all the-”

“Stuffiness,” Kohza supplies, nodding sagely.

She elbows him. “ _Propriety_ , I was _going_ to say.”

“That's what I said!” he says, and sidesteps her next jab with a grin.

She's about to go after him again when her phone hums in her pocket, and she quickly pulls it out to check the screen- it's a text from Igaram about some minutiae of the party arrangements, so she figures it can wait. She doesn't notice Kohza looking curiously over at the screen until he leans his weight on her shoulder.

“Who's the girl?” he asks, and she blinks, glancing down again at her phone background and reddening slightly despite herself. Nami is grinning at the camera, bright and sun-lit, and at her side Vivi is smiling small and awkward and looking at her like she's the only person on the planet.

“One of my friends,” she says, after fumbling for a moment, because there's so many things Nami is- convenience store thief and tangerine gardener and the girl Vivi is maybe in love with, but before anything else she's her friend. “Nami.”

“Uh-huh,” he says, and she shoots him a _look_ at his tone, but he's still focused on the screen. “She's really pretty, huh?”

Vivi, who's spent many hours writing mental poetry about Nami’s hair and freckles and dark eyes and tough hands and soft skin, says, “I guess.” She's trying for neutral but she can tell by Kohza’s snort that she misses the mark by a mile.

“You're blushing,” he says, sounding delighted. “Miss perfect princess is _blushing_ -”

“I'm _not_ -” Vivi says, frantically trying to fight down the heat in her cheeks, her embarrassment only making them redden further instead.

“You _are_ ,” Kohza says, and he's the closest thing she'll ever have to a brother and he's known her since they were six years old so there's really no lying to him. He grins over at her. “She must be quite a girl.”

Vivi ducks her head and bites her lip to hold her smile back and says, “She is.”

* * *

Settling back into the flow of everyday life is familiar and strange all at once. In many ways, it feels like her home and the people who inhabit it haven't changed at all during the year she was gone, and it should be easy to fit back into the space she filled before.

The thing, is, though, everyone _else_ might not have changed, but _Vivi_ certainly has. It just takes her a little while to realize it.

One day, Igaram finds her in the gardens to tell her her father wants her to come to his office, and says he’ll get the car to drive her, but the traffic is heavy this time of day and driving across the city to the company headquarters might take well over an hour.

Vivi looks up thoughtfully, and considers the nearest building. Alubarna’s buildings are squat and square, flat-topped and close together, and this nearest one has a trellis up the side for supporting some climbing desert roses.

“I'll be right back, Miss Vivi, just need to fetch the car from the garage,” Igaram says, turning away. She holds out a hand to stop him, eying the climbing trellis. It's bolted right into the side of the building, so it’ll support her weight.

“No, it's fine,” she says absently. It's good her year abroad got her dressing more casually- her tank top and shorts are perfect for this. “I can get there faster on my own.”

She rolls her shoulders to loosen the muscles, remembers everything Luffy taught her about climbing and running and jumping. Remembers a bright sunshine grin shadowed by the brim of a hat and, _Hey, Vivi, just don't look down, okay? You can't fall if you don't look down, it's the rules._

“Miss Vivi, what-” Igaram starts, and doesn't get any further than that before she launches herself up the side of the building, getting a grip a good two thirds of the way up the rose trellis, and easily propels herself up onto the roof.

The city’s rooftops spread out all around her, wide and gleaming and inviting, and she grins to the sound of Igaram shouting below her, and runs, and _leaps_.

* * *

**Vivi**  
alubarna is the BEST city for parkour  
i think i nearly gave poor igaram a heart attack though

 **Nami**  
your butler right?  
god i always forget how rich you are  
you have a BUTLER

 **Vivi**  
i can hear the cha-ching in your brain from halfway across the world

 **Nami**  
i will not apologize  
a BUTLER

 **Vivi**  
you better not be planning to marry me just for my money

 **Nami**  
only your gorgeous face and sparkling personality, babe

 **Vivi**  
well then, how could i refuse?

 **Nami**  
you gotta admit tho  
i would be a great trophy wife

 **Vivi**  
i think you’re too smart to be a trophy wife  
all the trophy wives i’ve ever met just giggled a lot  
you might have to settle for just being my treasure

 **Vivi**  
nami?  
you still there?

 **Nami**  
yeah lmao  
sorry tripped and dropped my phone  
i’m fine

* * *

“Terracotta,” Vivi says, fiddling with her hands uncertainly, “I need help.”

The older woman immediately straightens from where she was carefully dusting the piano keys, and the sight reminds Vivi that she needs to sit down at it one of these days and try out those scales Brook taught her. “Miss Vivi? Of course, dear, what is it?”

Vivi hesitates, considering how to phrase her problem. “There's… this girl,” she starts carefully. “I met her during my year abroad. And her birthday is in a couple weeks, so if I get a present in the mail soon, it should arrive on time. And… I don't know what to get. But I want it to be special. I…”

She hesitates a moment, then says, “I _really_ like her.”

Terracotta’s laugh is low and rumbling and always comforting, and now it puts Vivi in mind of the thunderstorms Nami likes to watch from her attic. They'd curled up in the window alcove up there one October night, piled in blankets and pillows, and watched the lightning.

“Well,” Terracotta says, clapping her hands, “what does she like?”

“What Nami likes- um, shiny things,” Vivi says, the answer coming to her lips easily. “Ah… storms. Tangerines. Sour candy. Cats… animals in general, but cats especially. The ocean.”

“Hmmm,” Terracotta hums, eyes bright. “I've got a few ideas. I need to stock up on some seasonal ingredients- why don't you come with me to the market this afternoon, and we can check out some of the jewelry stalls, hm? Handmade treasures are the best kind.”

“That’s _perfect,_ ” Vivi says, and means it.

She winds up finding a pair of earrings in a narrow stall, turquoise beads just a shade greener than her hair backed with shining silver, a jagged silver lightning bolt dangling from each.

Two and a half weeks later, the day after Nami’s eighteenth birthday, she wakes up to a text with an image attached.

She taps it open and is greeted with a picture of Nami grinning, winking with her tongue between her teeth, new earrings dangling from her ears, one shoulder bandaged over what Vivi already knows must be the new tattoo her mother had promised to buy for her on her eighteenth birthday, and it makes her heart beat so loud in her ears that she tumbles back into her bed, sprawled on her mattress and staring up at the ceiling with her phone clutched to her chest.

She’s so utterly fucked.

She saves the picture. And then she emails it to herself too, just in case something happens to her phone.

* * *

Vivi doesn’t mind the business parties she has to attend, as her father’s heiress. She even enjoys them, to a point. She likes the dresses and the glitter and the conversation- especially the latter, at the moment. At this particular event, quite a few people have made the questionable choice of asking about her year abroad, which she is _more_ than happy to talk about.

After a few hours of small talk and listening to repetitive toasts for success in the new quarter, though, she can feel her energy waning, and ducks out of the main banquet room to tuck herself in a hallway corner, sit down against the wall and pull out her phone.

She opens Nami’s contact, goes to text her- and impulsively taps the ‘call’ button instead, bringing the phone to her ear.

(Her ringtone for Nami is the opening of Money by Pink Floyd. She wonders, sometimes, if Nami has a special ringtone for her.)

She’s half not expecting an answer, even, but after a minute of dull ringing, there’s the faint click of the call connecting in her air, and Nami’s voice comes through, smooth as honey and sounding a little out of breath.

“ _Princess?_ ”

The nickname brings an involuntary smile to her lips, and she pulls her knees up to her chest and rests the phone between her ear and her shoulder. “Hi, Nami.”

“ _Hi_ ,” Nami echoes, sounding amused. “ _What’s the occasion? Not that you can’t call me anytime._ ”

“No occasion,” Vivi says. “I was just- I’m at this really dull, really fancy party with my father and his business partners, and everything is so expensive, and I kept looking around and thinking what you would be most likely to steal if you were here.”

Nami laughs, and even over thousands of miles the sound is just as warm and clear as she remembered. She hadn’t realized how much she missed it. “ _Yeah? What did you decide?_ ”

“The napkin rings,” Vivi answers promptly. “Easy to palm and smuggle into a purse and I think they’re real sterling, too.”

“ _I’m so proud of you_ ,” Nami says.

“Good, because my father would be _horrified_.”

“ _It’ll have to be our secret, then._ ”

Vivi grins into her phone. “How’s everyone else doing?”

“ _Oh, you know_ ,” Nami says, and she sounds flippant but Vivi knows her well enough to hear the deep fondness just beneath the surface. “ _Same as always, more or less. Don’t worry, you’re not missing out that much. Oh, Luffy almost got suspended._ ”

“Suspended?” Vivi echoes, feeling not as surprised as she probably should have. “What did he do?”

“ _There was this really nasty temp teacher, and- did you ever meet Camie? She’s a freshman- he was a real dick to Camie, and her best friend too when he tried to stand up for her. And her friend was kind of on a last warning already cause he was already in juvie, it was a whole thing, so he couldn’t really do anything- and anyways, Luffy got sick of it and punched him so hard I think he actually knocked a couple teeth loose_ ,” Nami explains, sounding decidedly pleased by the outcome of the story.

Vivi gasps. “What happened after?” she asks. “You said he didn’t actually get suspended, right?”

“ _Yeah, the teacher tried to get Luffy suspended- well, technically he tried to get him expelled and also arrested, I think?- but Robin had smuggled her phone into class to film all the nasty shit he was saying and she showed the principal, and he got fired. Luffy still got detention for a month, though._ ”

Vivi smothers a laugh in her hand. “I forgot how interesting life always is around you all.”

“ _‘Interesting’ is one word for it_ ,” Nami agrees dryly. “ _‘Crazy’ is another._ ”

“I kind of miss you guys’ brand of crazy,” Vivi admits. “Chaotic, maybe, but… it was always fun.”

“ _Even the wax museum?_ ”

“Maybe not the wax museum,” Vivi admits to the music of Nami’s laughter. “That guy was so weird.”

“ _I think Usopp’s still convinced he was a serial killer,_ ” Nami says.

“I mean,” Vivi says, “I wouldn’t be surprised. No normal person gets _that_ excited about candles _._ ”

Nami snorts. Vivi glances up at the clock to see how much time is left until the end of the party- nearly a whole hour- and something occurs to her.

“Hang on, Nami,” she says, running the familiar timezone calculation in her head, “isn’t it like midday there?”

“ _Yeah?_ ”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”

“ _Oh, yeah,_ ” Nami says. “ _I’m on the roof._ ”

“You’re _what?_ ”

“ _I got your call between classes, and I didn’t want to miss it but I’m not supposed to use my phone in school,_ ” Nami says nonchalantly, “ _so I climbed the fire escape to the roof._ ”

“Nami!” Vivi says, sitting up slightly. “You’ll miss class!”

“ _It’s just math, I’m aces at math,_ ” Nami says dismissively. “ _I’d rather be talking to you. And the weather’s awesome today, I don’t wanna be stuck inside anyways._ ”

Vivi giggles. “You know, you’re just as ridiculous as the rest of them, right?” And, before Nami can object, “But that’s a good thing. I love that about you.”

“ _Aw, you’re gonna make me blush, princess,_ ” Nami says, and Vivi can’t tell for sure but it sounds like she’s smiling, half a world away. “ _So, what have you been up to?_ ”

They talk and talk and talk, the rhythm of conversation so easy and familiar that Vivi doesn’t even register the time ticking past. She tells Nami about settling back into life at home, about all the things she misses about being abroad and all the little things she’s realizing she picked up from their friends- basic first aid, a collection of obscure history facts, a taste for sea shanties.

Nami, in turn, tells her story after story, all the little adventures her friends have gotten up to since she’s been gone- a new train station opening in town, the supposedly haunted house they’d gone and poked around in after Usopp swore up and down he saw a ghost, the massive chain of thunderstorms that had raged over the town for nearly a week straight and brought down more than half a dozen trees.

Vivi still wishes she could be there, but listening to Nami’s colorful retellings, she can almost feel like she still is. She relaxes back against the wall and lets her eyes slip shut, and forgets all about the party and the talking and the toasts, and lets her imagination dance along with Nami’s words.

It’s fifty-five minutes and seventy percent of her phone battery later when her father finally finds her, in the midst of laughing helplessly at Nami’s story about one of Luffy’s brothers (it’s unclear which one, apparently they’d both tried to blame it on the other) accidentally lighting one of Franky’s cars on fire.

She startles when his shadow falls over her, moves to the phone away from her ear and apologize for losing track of time so badly, but he only smiles and puts out a hand to forestall her. “It’s fine,” he says, speaking softly so as to not interrupt. “I’ve been looking for you since the party ended. Catching up with your friends?”

She smiles and nods. To Nami, she says, “I have to go. Party’s over.”

“ _I should probably get back in time for seventh period too_ ,” Nami says, sounding utterly unenthusiastic about hanging up, and then, after a moment, “ _Will you call again?_ ”

“I- of course!” Vivi says, maybe too quickly. “Of course. I mean- I didn’t, until now, I didn’t want to bother you, but if you want-”

“ _You never bother me, princess,_ ” Nami says. “ _...I like talking to you. A lot._ ”

Vivi grins. “Then… I’ll call. A lot.”

“ _You better,_ ” Nami says.

She does.

A lot.

* * *

**Vivi**  
i’m thinking of getting a tattoo

 **Nami**  
oh wow really?  
you should  
you’d look great with a tattoo  
like a badass

 **Vivi**  
thank you!

 **Nami**  
surprised ur dad’s okay w that  
unless he’s not?

 **Vivi**  
ahh i haven’t raised it with him yet  
but i’ll be eighteen in just a couple months  
and it’s my body and my choice anyways

 **Nami**  
damn right it is

 **Vivi**  
i just don’t know what i want it to be yet  
how’d you pick yours?

 **Nami**  
for mine i combined a couple things that reminded me of people who’re important to me  
but like it doesn’t have to be deep  
nojiko chose the design for hers just cause she thought it was pretty

 **Vivi**  
hmmm

 **Nami**  
hmmm?

 **Vivi**  
hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm  
i think  
i’d want something that reminds me of you  
and all our other friends

* * *

On the morning of Christmas Day (still the evening before, for them), she commandeers her father’s big office computer and they set up a video call. It takes some back-and-forth clumsy troubleshooting over text with Franky to get the connection steady, but eventually they figure it out and the stuttering picture stabilizes.

They’re all crammed together onto the big overstuffed couch she recognizes as being the same one from Franky’s basement. It’s decidedly not big enough for nine people- Luffy is perched on the backrest, Chopper is in Zoro’s lap, Robin is seated delicately on an armrest and Brook has apparently forgone sitting entirely, given he’s standing behind the poor overburdened piece of furniture.

They all explode with excitement as soon as the call connects properly, and Vivi nearly starts crying right there and then, has to blink back fond tears, and she hadn’t realized until then just how long it’s been since she’s seen them- how much she’s missed them.

“ _Vivi!_ ” Luffy’s shout rises above the tumult due to being a good order of magnitude louder. “ _Merry Christmas!_ ” he calls, and the rest of their friends echo him, their voices all clattering together into one of the best sounds she’s ever heard in her life.

Vivi laughs and it very nearly turns into a sob, and she’s scrubbing at her eyes with her palms but beaming brighter than the sun when she says, “Merry Christmas, everyone!”

“ _Did you get your cookies yet?_ ” Luffy asks eagerly, and is almost immediately shouted into silence.

Vivi blinks. “My- what?”

Nami drives an elbow into Luffy’s ribs, to absolutely no effect. “ _It was_ supposed _to be a surprise_ ,” she says, shooting him a glare. Vivi knows her well enough to know what it looks like when she’s really angry, though, and that definitely isn’t it.

Luffy winces. “ _Oops. Sorry,_ ” he says, not sounding or looking particularly sorry.

Nami sighs, turning back to the camera. “ _Sanji made a ridiculous amount of Christmas cookies during the last week of school before break because he was stressed over finals_ ,” she explains.

“ _I helped!_ ” Luffy chirps.

“ _You did not_ ,” Sanji says crossly. “ _It’s a miracle any of the cookie dough survived long enough to make it to the oven with you around._ ”

“ _Chopper had the idea to send some to you, since we had so many, so we packed up a box and sent it, but that was only a week ago, so it won’t have arrived yet_ ,” Nami says.

Vivi smiles, her entire chest going warm and soft at the gesture. It’s a small thing, but it means they’ve been thinking of her, that they remembered her even for something as small as leftover cookies- and she didn’t think they’d _forget_ about her, not really, but maybe there was a small part of her that worried, whether their friendship would wither once she left.

But now she knows that’s not true, and all of her joy at that revelation is in her voice when she says, “I can’t wait! I’m sure they’ll be delicious, Sanji.”

Sanji all but melts onto the nearest person, which is unfortunately Zoro, and the ensuing shoving match nearly overturns the entire couch. Vivi is content to rest her chin on a hand and watch through the screen, fondly, as the room dissolves into the familiar kind of chaos her friends seem to bring with them wherever they go.

Nami shoots an exasperated sideways look at the camera, _can you believe this nonsense?_ , and it’s enough to reduce Vivi to teary-eyed laughter.

She loves them so, so much.

* * *

The cookies arrive a week later, in a slightly battered cardboard box that’s so completely plastered with Christmas-themed stickers she’s a little surprised it made it through customs. She recognizes Nami’s neat handwriting in the address box. Inside, the cookies are a little smashed together from the transit, but the big bulk plastic bags Sanji always uses for leftovers have kept them fresh, and they’re still soft when she bites into the first one.

They’re cinnamon and chocolate, chaotically covered with sprinkles, and they are, indeed, delicious.

* * *

**Vivi**  
i’m guessing the sprinkles were luffy’s work?

 **Nami**  
usopp and chopper, actually  
luffy got a temporary kitchen ban after he ate like a third of the raw dough

 **Vivi**  
on top of his usual all-time kitchen ban?

 **Nami**  
exactly  
are the cookies still good, though?  
i was a little worried what the time in the mail might do to them

 **Vivi**  
they’re fantastic!  
i already texted sanji to give him my compliments, but he didn’t reply

 **Nami**  
he probably fainted  
weakling

* * *

It’s a quiet afternoon in January, relaxed and slow. Vivi is texting back and forth with Nami about school, while her father sits on the couch across from her on his laptop, sorting through prospective employees and the first wave of international intern applications.

“Who’re you texting?” Kohza interrupts, leaning over her shoulder. She mock-glares up at him, moving instinctively to shield the screen with one hand, but not trying all that hard.

“Nobody,” she says automatically, and then, “a friend.”

“Huh,” he says with a grin in his voice, and she pointedly doesn’t look up at him. “Is it Nami?”

She hates the way she can _feel_ her entire face go hot, even as she fights to keep her expression neutral, and Kohza snorts loudly. “Bingo,” he says, propping his crossed forearms on the chair back and-

-and then he grabs the phone from her hands and _bolts_ , weaving around the couch and vanishing through the doorway. Vivi makes an inadvertent startled, indignant noise, almost ( _almost_ ) too surprised to be angry, and sprints after him. She doesn’t bother to go around the couch, instead vaulting straight over it with a hand on the backrest as her father startles out of the way.

“ _Kohza!_ ” she screeches, her entire face still warm. “Give that _back!_ ”

He leads her on a merry chase through nearly the entire house, both of them making ample use of all their hard-won knowledge of the estate’s layout gathered through years of hide-and-seek and tag, until she finally tackles him at the bottom of the basement stairs and yanks her phone out of his unresisting hands.

She sits down on his back harder than is probably necessary, forcing a small but satisfying ‘ _oof_ ’ out of him, and flips through the phone. There's no new texts with Nami, and nothing else seems changed, so she raises her eyebrows wordlessly down at him.

He shrugs as best he can while pinned flat on his stomach against the basement carpeting, and grins up at her with the same smile she remembers from when they were kids and Pell caught them climbing around on the eaves. It's exactly as effective as it was back then, to her irritation, and she rolls her eyes and only kicks him once before letting him up.

“ _Why_ ,” she asks, half-sighing and half-laughing.

“I wanted to see if you'd told her anything about me!” he says.

“Only all the bad things,” she lies, and shoves her phone back into her pocket.

He grins, because he sees right through her and she's never been a good liar anyways, and she rolls her eyes and elbows him again.

* * *

**Nami**  
so hey  
who’s kohza

 **Vivi**  
fhsdkffh  
so THAT’S why he took my phone

 **Nami**  
ahhh  
i was about to ask why you’d given him my number  
didn’t seem very in character for you

 **Vivi**  
what did he say to you?

 **Nami**  
he asked me what my intentions with you were  
obviously i told him i intend to make an honest woman of you

 **Vivi**  
i’m going to kill him  
will you be my alibi?

 **Nami**  
do you even need to ask  
officer miss vivi is innocent  
i know because i was sweet-talking her over the phone at the time of death  
so is he your brother?

 **Vivi**  
may as well be  
he's my best friend  
his dad used to be our groundskeeper before he retired, so we grew up together

 **Nami**  
that's hella cute  
sorta makes me think of luffy and his brothers

 **Vivi**  
oh that's right, i forgot they're not actually related  
actually now that i think about it  
most of our friend group has family they're not related to, right?

 **Nami**  
oh yeah i guess so  
i mean i think you and robin are the only ones who aren’t officially or unofficially adopted  
oh, and brook since he just lived on his own after he got kicked out

 **Vivi**  
but he's got you all now, hasn't he?  
that sounds like a family to me

 **Nami**  
….yeah. he sure does  
you know  
you're part of that family too  
you don't get out of that by moving back halfway around the world  
you're never getting rid of us

 **Vivi**  
i wouldn't want it any other way  
we’re still getting married too though, right?

 **Nami**  
oh yeah for sure  
obviously

 **Vivi**  
it’s probably good we’re eloping  
kohza would tell ALL the embarrassing stories from when i was a kid at the wedding

 **Nami**  
we’d probably have to have two cakes too  
one for luffy and one for everyone else

 **Vivi**  
and obviously we’d have brook and his friends doing the music

* * *

The cardboard box arrives the day before Vivi’s birthday. It’s small, and decorated with spirals and pinwheel curls in blue ballpoint pen, along with a bold black-and-white sticker that reads PERISHABLE. She doesn’t even need to look at the return address to know who it’s from, and she runs for a pair of scissors to open it right there in the entryway, all lit up inside with surprised excitement.

Maybe she shouldn’t have been surprised. She knows Nami would call her stupid, laughingly and fondly and dark eyes shining bright, for ever daring to think she would forget her birthday. She slices the tape away and flips the box open, and has to dig through four layers of tightly packed newspaper before she finds the sealed plastic bag buried in the middle. She pulls it out and bites down on a gasp.

It’s a plant.

It’s tiny, just a seedling, little more than a sprout with a few tiny budding not-yet-leaves. The roots are wrapped in paper towels, still somewhat damp, and a few drops of water spill from the bag as she opens it, pulling the seedling out to cup it in her hands. It looks a little withered and battered from its long voyage, but still wonderfully, unmistakably, alive.

There’s a letter in the box, nearly lost in the chaos of the newspaper padding, done in Nami’s beautiful cartographer’s hand.

_Happy birthday, Vivi! So, I couldn’t afford a nice present like you gave me, and I didn’t want to give you something stolen. I wanted to give you something that was really from me. So I’m giving you this, from my mom’s farm._

_I thought of just shipping you tangerines,_ Nami writes, and Vivi reads, sitting crosslegged in the entryway with the sapling still cradled in one hand and her heart feeling too big for her chest, _but I didn’t know if they’d survive the mail. I hope it arrives okay- let me know. I tried to pack the bag with enough bits of ice to give it water for two weeks._

It’s followed by a couple paragraphs of instructions for planting and care, and then signed _Love, Nami_ , with that curling flourish at the end that she loves to add, and it makes Vivi forget how to breathe for a few seconds.

Once she can get her feet back under her again and she feels a little less dizzy with helpless affection, she gets to work. A small pot from the groundskeeper’s shed, potting soil from the bag reserved for Terracotta’s vegetable garden. She fills the pot carefully, following Nami’s instructions by dampening it with water before planting the seedling in the middle. She smiles the whole time, can hardly stop herself.

A warm place with good light, the instructions say, so she puts it in her room, just inside her windowsill. The sunlight kisses the tiny budding leaves, the same sun that Nami is growing the same kind of trees under, halfway across the world.

They don’t farm tangerines in Alubarna, or anywhere near- it’s too hot to farm them on a mass scale, the desert too dry and merciless. She ate her first ever farm-fresh tangerine in the grove behind Nami’s house, the first time she’d visited after school, barely a week after she met them all. Nami had pulled the ripe fruit directly off a tree with deft fingers and tossed it to her carelessly as she showed Vivi around the little farm. Vivi had fumbled it, nearly dropped it in her surprise, and Nami had laughed. She’d peeled it with her fingernails, and the first piece of fruit felt almost religious in her mouth, soft and sweet and wonderful.

That’ll always be Nami, in her mind- the smell of tangerine trees and freshly-churned dirt, the sound of laughter ringing in the air, tiny bits of orange peel stuck beneath her fingernails, and the taste of the freshest fruit she’s ever had on her tongue.

She waters the little seedling for the first time, careful not to flood it, and thinks that she can’t wait to taste it again.

* * *

**Vivi**  
nami this is an absolutely lovely present  
thank you so much!!

 **Nami**  
it arrived okay?

 **Vivi**  
just fine!  
i put it on my windowsill so i can see it when i wake up every morning  
[picture]

 **Nami**  
perfect  
it’ll probably grow real well in year-round warm temperatures  
so long as you don’t let it fry in the summers

 **Vivi**  
don’t worry, our air conditioning is top notch

 **Nami**  
oh yeah i guess it would kinda have to be huh  
how hot does it even get there?  
i remember you weren’t bothered at all by the august heat here when everybody else was dying

 **Vivi**  
i think our average high in july is about 35C?

 **Nami**  
JESUS

 **Vivi**  
but also it doesn’t get cold here so its a tradeoff  
i was freezing in january when i lived in meri  
but you all seemed fine

 **Nami**  
honestly that was a pretty average winter  
it was hardly even below zero  
i still have no idea how luffy was able to go around in flipflops though  
i kinda think he straight up doesn’t perceive temperature  
he told me once his grandpa used to take him and his brothers camping in the middle of winter to build character so maybe that’s part of it

 **Vivi**  
every story i hear about luffy’s grandfather sounds fake, i swear

 **Nami**  
oh, he’s very real  
almost excessively so  
he visited for a weekend a couple months ago because he was on shore leave  
he got in at least two fistfights and stopped an attempted bank robbery

* * *

In the end, the tattoo she gets for herself the day after her birthday is small, and simple. It’s done in less than an hour, paid in birthday money. It’s small enough that she can wear a bracelet or a watch to cover it up, if she needs to. She doesn’t intend to.

She’d wanted to commemorate her time abroad somehow, her friends and her adventures, to write them down in ink on her skin so they’d never, ever be forgotten, a permanent reminder of all that she’d lived and experienced during the best year of her life.

And when she’d thought about a symbol that could summarize all of that enormity down into a single design, the first thing that came to mind was the wristbands. They’d been the result of a stupid long-running joke among their friend group, something about _X_ meaning _treasure_ \- Vivi’s long since forgotten the punchline and the origin alike, but those don’t really matter.

She remembers that the wristbands were Zoro’s idea and Usopp’s design, though, and crafted out of an old pair of leggings that Nami had long since grown out of. They were white, a bold black X stamped on each one, and Vivi still has hers, buried somewhere in her dresser, worn and precious.

Her friends had worn them, in the farewell video they sent her, the one that had brought her to tears on the train, and that’s what she’s thinking of, when she walks into the tattoo parlor and asks for an X on the back of her wrist.

It’s a memory written in tattoo ink, and by the time she walks out again with bandages wrapped around the sore and aching place on her arm, the heavy loneliness in her heart feels lighter, and she doesn’t miss them quite so badly. She can breathe in, and breathe out, and taste the sandy air of Alubarna and feel at home again.

* * *

Vivi graduates from high school in May, the sun high and bright in the sky as she walks across the stage for her diploma. It feels less important than it should, she thinks. To be honest, it won’t change her life all that much. She’s been accepted to her first choice school, a big public university on the other side of the city, and she’ll start in the fall. She’s tentatively thinking of double-majoring, business and political science.

She takes pictures with her classmates, hugs her teachers, can’t help but wish she was graduating alongside Nami and all her other friends a million miles away. Their graduation was a few weeks earlier than hers- Nami had taken a whole mess of commemorative photos, the whole bunch of them posing with their diplomas, and sent every one of them to Vivi.

Vivi had saved the lot, and then spent a few moments staring down at her lock screen. Nami grinning and winking at the camera, Vivi smiling and distracted and hopelessly, uselessly in love. A year and a thousand miles away.

She’s heard about what all their friends plan to do next. Most of them are moving on to the same local college. It’s a good school, and it’ll allow them all to stay close together. Luffy is apparently in the process of convincing everybody to go on a cross-country roadtrip over the summer in Franky’s big minivan.

She doesn’t know what Nami is going to do, though she guesses she’ll be going to the same university as the rest. She’ll study history, Vivi supposes, or geography, or both. She’s always been fascinated by the shape of the world and the people who shape it. It’s just one of the hundreds of things Vivi loves about her.

(She’s gotten better at admitting it to herself, over the long months of distance, of allowing herself to think it over, to consider her feelings honestly, certainty growing with every phone call and text exchange and battered cardboard box. She loves Nami. She loves her hair and her eyes and her winking grin and her sharp wit and the immeasurable softness she holds for her friends.)

(She wants to get a chance to tell her someday, really tell her, face to face, like she should have done on that train station platform, what feels like a million years ago.)

* * *

**Vivi**  
how’s the road trip going?

 **Nami**  
well first of all franky’s van was not made to have nine people living out of it  
especially for an extended period of time  
but we did learn that sanji can cook on an engine block  
also yesterday luffy and chopper got us banned from a zoo

 **Vivi**  
i- what??  
i’d expect that from luffy maybe, but chopper?

 **Nami**  
luffy fell into the gorilla enclosure and caused a panic  
and chopper nearly went hysterical over how small some of the enclosures were and tried to free the animals  
these were separate but concurrent events by the way  
it was an interesting day  
next stop is the geology museum in the next city on robin’s request  
hopefully they’ll be better behaved there

 **Vivi**  
to be honest  
i wouldn’t get your hopes up

 **Nami**  
i’ve long since learned this bunch will always find a way to disappoint me  
but i love them anyways

* * *

It’s a sweltering day at the end of August, not long before she’s set to start her first week of college classes, when her father comes to fetch her.

“Vivi?” he says, leaning into her doorway, his eyes lingering on the little tangerine tree for a moment. It’s grown, in the months since she received it- still small, but it has little bunches of leaves now, and the beginnings of bark around its stem. She’s already had to move it into a bigger pot once, and might have to again before the year is out.

She glances up, and blinks. “I thought you were at the airport to greet the new international interns?”

“I was,” he says, and then, “would you mind coming downstairs with me? There’s one I think you’ll get along with.”

She follows him down to the entryway, puzzled but admittedly curious. She usually meets the interns her father’s company takes on from around the world each year, but later, during their orientations at the start of the fall semester. Not the same day they arrive, and moreover, not at her own house. The interns all have dorms provided by the company, set up near the offices across town.

They round the corner into the foyer, and her father steps aside so she can see who’s waiting there.

Vivi freezes.

Her heart is suddenly very loud in her ears.

Nami’s hair is longer than it was when she last saw her in person a year ago, tied up in a high ponytail. She’s leaning against a pair of suitcases, a backpack on her back. She looks up when Vivi enters, and her dark eyes are bright with mischief when she grins.

“Hi, princess,” she says. “Did I mention I applied for an internship working for your dad? Kohza sent me the application, so I think we might have to owe him one.”

Vivi opens her mouth, then closes it, and then manages, “Nami,” soft and wondering, like if she speaks too loud she might break the illusion and Nami might disappear again.

Nami’s grin fades into a smaller, softer smile, and her dark eyes are warm when she says, “Missed you.”

And Vivi _crashes_ into her open arms, nearly sending them both tumbling back over Nami’s suitcases, and hugs her so tight it almost hurts, and Nami is real and warm in her arms. Nami hugs her back just as hard, laughing softly, and her hair still smells like tangerine shampoo.

“I missed you too,” Vivi says into Nami’s shoulder, at a loss for anything else to say, and then, “You’re _terrible_ , I can’t believe you didn’t warn me you were coming-”

“Sorry,” Nami says, not sounding very sorry. “I wanted to surprise you.”

Vivi leans back, just a little, so that she can see Nami’s face. She’s still smiling, all full of dizzying fondness, and looking at Vivi the same way Vivi is looking at her- like she can’t quite believe she’s real.

“I love you,” Vivi says, because the words have been sitting in her chest unspoken for months, ever since that sunlit afternoon in Nami’s bedroom, ever since their last goodbye at the train station, and now she finally, finally has a chance to voice them.

The light in Nami’s eyes at her words is like sunrise and she says, “I moved halfway across the world to hear you say that, princess.”

“Was it worth it?”

“Oh, absolutely,” Nami says, “Mind if I stay awhile?”

And then Vivi kisses her, and it’s a little clumsy and unpracticed but at the same time it’s the best thing she’s ever done, and Nami laughs against her mouth, bright and delighted, and kisses her back.

**Author's Note:**

> anyways joking-but-not-really with your female friends about getting married is wlw culture, im gay so trust me on this.
> 
> one of my favorite parts of writing modern aus is coming up with corresponding mundane events for the absolutely wildlin canon events, hahahaha. so investigating the supposed ‘haunted house’ is thriller bark, both the weird wax museum and the questionable camping trip are little garden, luffy punching a teacher is the tenryuubito incident, etc. i had SO much fun with this story. 
> 
> thanks for reading!!


End file.
